​Hello Dear friends and family! Life is great in Sha Lu. Absolutely love it here and we are working hard. Sister Nelson is the best! She is just like me. We can pretty much read each others minds. Call us the psychics of Taiwan. Mon: P-day so we took a nap. Lately we have been pretty pooped. Tonight we tried a new Italian restaurant for dinner. and then got some classic Dong Gua Cha. We decided to drink our "tea" at a near by 7-11 instead of at the restaurant. Good idea because we ran into a couple of really cute girls! Just today President emails us about not wasting time and finding those who are ready to receive the gospel. We are definitely finding those who are ready to receive the gospel.

​Tues: We had homemade bread that we didn't want to waste so we made egg salad sandwiches. Those were my favorite when I was little. We went on exchanges today. I was with Sister Gardener! She was my STL in the MTC and she is awesome! I love her so much! We had so much fun too. When we came back to our area we met with an active member, Ye Jie Mei. She is sooo cool. She has 3 little kids. They are so cute! She made us delicious food with hot chocolate. She bore her testimony about the Gospel of Jesus Christ for like 20 minutes. It was a beautiful testimony! She is so strong in the Gospel. It makes me really sad when people get baptized just because they like the missionaries or because it seems fun. She really stressed her love for the Savior and his Atonement. We need more real converted people like her in the world.

Wed: Exchanges went really well. I learned a lot of new things and I made lots of new goals. But when I came back to the area with Sister Nelson I felt very overwhelmed. I think the goals that I made were a bit too ambitious. Sister Nelson definitely has the gift of discernment. She always knows what to say to me too. Needless to say I've been working on adjusting my goals. We met with one of our investigators, Magee. She is awesome! This was our first time going to her house, which is actually a dorm. She remembered a lot that we taught her from the first lesson. But there were some things that were very essential that we needed to review. So this lesson was very sweet and simple and like an overview. It didn't feel right to go on to the second lesson. She invited us to eat dinner with her. Dinner would be free. Cool! .....if you worship idols. WHAT!??! Yes, that still happens here. Pretty much if you Bai Bai you get free dinner. hmmm....I think we will just go with paying for our classic dumplings thank you! Tonight one of our members, Zhou Jie Mei, came to the church crying. We sat down with her before english class. She had to quit her job and she doesnt know what to do. Zhou Jie Mei is such a strong member. She is so dedicated to the Lord and to this Gospel. She comes to the church to find answers and she says that she always finds them. So she stayed for english class and afterwards she came up to us and told us her plan. She is such a great example to us. I also felt really sick today. :( Which stunk because we had to walk home again from the church. We keep on taking the wrong bus back to our bikes and we have to walk everywhere. Then it is too late to get our bikes back so we have to just walk home. Knowing characters would probably be a good idea about now.

Thurs: I'm still feeling a bit overwhelmed but eh what are ya gonna do? Still working on goals. One step at a time right?? And I have noticed that when we get out and talk to people and do missionary work that discouragement and the overwhelming feeling goes away and you actually feel successful. It's awesome! We met some really cool people today. Met a guy who has been to the SLC temple! Woah! And another lady who doesn't come to church but reads the Bible with her kids because she likes Jesus's teachings. It really is truly amazing how the Lord is preparing these people. We had to drop one of our investigators. I really don't like dropping investigators but this investigator was not progressing at all. Just wanted to talk to us as friends. The Spirit was never in the lessons either. We felt prompted to go out tracting tonight instead of calling phones. It was a great idea! Except there was this old guy who kept on telling people to ignore us. Some doors would open and we would be talking to someone. The old guy would come up behind us and tell the people something in Taiwanese and then they would just close the door. :((( But we did knock on someones door who just moved in. She is a Christian but her parents are Buddhist. She and her brothers would sneak to church when they were little. hmmm...prepared?!?!? She is very promising.

We ate dinner with our investigator, Chen jie mei. She is the best! Had a wonderful feast and of course ate way too much. oh well. I tried this Noni juice. DO you know what Noni is? Apparently it is some sort of fruit. It was really gross. Our lesson did not go as planned. We wanted to share about Word Of Wisdom. We KNOW that she has a big problem with that. But we felt like we needed to share more about the commandments of reading the scriptures and praying. She hasn't been doing those things. How can she give up her other things if she can't take time to develop a relationship with God? ​Fri: We had an awesome lesson today - and my testimony of having a member fellowship during lessons increased. We read scriptures together and we introduced our member to the investigator. We told our investigator that if she has any questions she can ask us or the peike. She asked questions for about 30 minutes. But they were all to the fellowshipper. They were questions like "how has your life changed from being baptized? What is the difference you have seen? How do you remember to pray and read scriptures everyday?" They were awesome questions. It is really hard for us to get someone to fellowship this specific investigator but I can see that it is what she needs the most. We had a great experience when Sister Nelson got a Priesthood Blessing. After she shared what her concern was the Spirit totally filled the room. You can tell that God speaks through his servants. We had a great lesson with a less active family. The last lesson that we had with them seemed very superficial. They had great answers to our questions but the Spirit was not supporting what they said. But this lesson was totally different. We shared about a mighty change of heart and the Spirit was so strong. There was nothing fake. It was awesome!

Sat: HAPPY HALLOWEEN! This morning we were lead to tract in a friendly neighborhood. We met lots of cool people. No one accepted our message. But they were willing to listen for a little bit. We met with Magee again. This time we were able to talk about the Plan of Salvation. We learned a lot about her. And she really opened up to us. At first we thought this would have to be a drop lesson. But no. She did pray and she did read but according to her she did not receive an answer to her prayer. Her answer is that God will provide a way for her to go to America. Ok...well, honestly I can't remember a whole lot that happened in that lesson. The Spirit Spoke the whole time. We didn't do anything, that is probably why I cant remember anything. But we did talk a lot about Jesus Christ Atonement. She said that she feels bad when she yells at people, even if they start it. But sometimes she forgives people when they yell at her. It was a really cool lesson to connect the feelings that you get when yelling at someone and forgiveness. And she understood it all.

We had our Halloween party for FHE. It was a success! We decorated cookies, played games and watched a mormon message. Elder Gathright had a HUGE box of popcorn from his mom. And a member brought chicken wings. We found some toilet paper in the bathroom and played hte classic wrap the mummy game. And geng hao we found a board that said "wanted" buahaha :)) We need to plan more fun stuff for FHE. Any ideas??

"Life is like a bicycle: you need to keep on pedaling or you will just fall over." It is so true. If you don't know what to do don't stop. Just keep pedaling with faith and you will find the wind to push you along.